WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has nominated Stephen Carmel, an executive with Maersk Line Ltd. (MLL), to head the U.S. Maritime Administration, according to documents filed in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Carmel replaces Brent Sadler, who had been tapped in March to lead the agency but had yet to undergo a nomination hearing in the Senate. No reason was given as to why Sadler’s nomination was withdrawn. FreightWaves has contacted the Senate for comment.
Marad is the agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation responsible for promoting U.S. domestic shipping and shipbuilding and providing funding for port intermodal connections with rail and trucking.
According to Carmel’s bio at the Yorktown Institute, a U.S. national security and geopolitical forum where he is currently an adviser, Carmel is senior vice president, maritime services at MLL, the U.S. subsidiary of Copenhagen, Denmark-based liner shipping company Maersk. Carmel is also a licensed deep sea ship’s master and was a vessel captain, according to the institute.
Carmel’s nomination comes as President Donald Trump seeks to restore U.S. maritime power as part of his “America First” agenda, which includes a plan to increase the fleet of the U.S.-flag fleet for trading internationally as well for domestic transport.
In a 2021 presentation for the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, a not-for-profit foreign policy forum, Carmel said the U.S. merchant fleet is “in serious trouble,” due to a lack of sealift capacity.
“At the end of day, this is one of those issues that the U.S. has some serious studying to do,” Carmel said during his presentation. “There are no easy answers, and we are just beginning to grapple with how big this problem is and what needs to be done to fix it.”
Carmel also at the time warned about the unintentional harm that broad tariffs can have on supply chains and trading partners, the benefits of reshoring, and the difficult economics associated with using the Arctic sea route for container shipping.
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